LECTIONARY № 145 · SUNDAY CYCLE A · WEEKDAY YEAR II
Thus says Yahweh to his anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I grasp… I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not.
— Isaiah 45:1, 4
Isaiah 40–55 is addressed to people in exile in Babylon, and its problem is practical: how does a defeated nation get home? The answer this chapter gives is a foreign policy development. Cyrus of Persia is coming, and Babylon will fall to him, and Isaiah says who arranged it.
What happens
"Thus says Yahweh to his anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I grasp, subduing nations before him, and making kings run in his service, opening before him the doors, with the gates unbarred: For the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one, I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. I am Yahweh and there is no other, there is no Theos besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am Yahweh, there is no other."
What to notice
The first three words of Isaiah 45:1 are among the most startling in the Hebrew Bible and almost every English translation lets you walk past them. Ko amar Yahweh li-meshicho l'Khoresh — "thus says Yahweh to his mashiach, to Cyrus."Messiah. The word is used of Israel's kings, of the high priest, and once of the patriarchs. Cyrus of Anshan is the only foreigner in the entire Hebrew Bible to be given the title.Hechezaqti bimino, "whose right hand I have seized," is not a generic gesture: in Babylonian royal ideology the king's legitimacy was conferred when he grasped the hand of Marduk in the New Year ceremony at Esagila — taking the hand of Bel was the technical phrase for a valid accession. Isaiah has taken the Babylonian coronation formula and reassigned the grip. And we have Cyrus's own version: the Cyrus Cylinder, now in the British Museum, is his official account of taking Babylon in 539 BC — and in it he credits Marduk with choosing him, taking his hand, and calling him by name. Isaiah 45 is arguing with a text that still exists. The line that gives the passage its edge is repeated for emphasis: v'lo yeda'tani, "and you have not known me," at Isaiah 45:4 and again at Isaiah 45:5. Cyrus is armed, named, given a title, and used, and he has no idea who is doing it.The point is not that he will find out — it is that his ignorance is not an obstacle. Va'aqare l'kha bishmekha, "I have called you by your name": in the ancient world naming is claiming, and to name a man before he exists is to have decided about him. And the stated purpose is not Israel's comfort but "so that from the rising of the sun to its setting they may know that there is none but me" — the audience for the whole operation is everybody.
Another of the enthronement psalms, and it is here for two words that bear directly on a question about taxes.
The selected verses
Psalm 96:1, 3."Sing to Yahweh a new song; sing to Yahweh, all you lands. Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds." Psalm 96:4–5."For great is Yahweh and highly to be praised; awesome is he, beyond all gods. For all the gods of the nations are things of nought, but Yahweh made the heavens." Psalm 96:7–8."Give to Yahweh, you families of nations, give to Yahweh glory and praise; give to Yahweh the glory due his name! Bring gifts, and enter his courts." Psalm 96:9–10."Worship Yahweh in holy attire; tremble before him, all the earth; say among the nations: Yahweh is king. He governs the peoples with equity."
What to notice
Psalm 96:5 contains a pun that no English can carry. Kol elohei ha-ammim elilim — "all the gods of the peoples are elilim."Elohim / elilim: the words sound almost the same and the second means nothings, worthless things, weaklings."The gods of the nations are no-gods" is about as close as English gets, and it loses the sneer. Psalm 96:8 is the verse that makes this psalm right for today: se'u minchah u-vo'u l'chatzrotav, "lift up a minchah and come into his courts."Minchah is a grain offering in the cult — and outside the cult it is the standard word for the tribute a vassal pays an overlord (Judges 3:15, 2 Kings 17:3–4). On a morning whose Gospel is a question about imperial tax, the psalm tells the nations to bring tribute to a different court. And Psalm 96:10 is a political sentence: imru va-goyim Yahweh malakh, "say among the nations: Yahweh has become king" — malakhbeing an accession announcement, what a herald shouts when a new reign begins. It is precisely the form of words an empire uses about its own ruler, and the psalm instructs Israel to shout it about somebody else in the empire's hearing.
1 Thessalonians begins today, and it is almost certainly the oldest document in the New Testament — written around AD 50 or 51, some fifteen to twenty years before the earliest gospel. This is the first surviving page of Christian writing, and it opens with three nouns that turn out to be already fixed.
What happens
"Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the assembly of the Thessalonians in Theos the Father and the master Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace. We give thanks to Theos always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our master Jesus Christ… knowing, brothers and sisters loved by Theos, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the HolyBreath and with much conviction."
What to notice
The triad in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 is the first appearance in Christian literature of the three still together in 1 Corinthians 13: pistis, agapē, elpis — trust, love, hope.They are here in the earliest Christian text we possess, and not as a formula being introduced but as one being used, which suggests it was older still. And each has a noun attached that keeps it from floating: tou ergou tēs pisteōs, the work of trust; tou kopou tēs agapēs, the labour of love — and kopos is not ordinary work but the exhausting kind, the sort that leaves you sore; tēs hypomonēs tēs elpidos, the endurance of hope, where hypomonē is literally "remaining under" — bearing up beneath a weight, not waiting patiently for something nice.Eidotes… tēn eklogēn hymōn, "knowing your election" — and Paul's evidence is given immediately: not a doctrine but a manner of arrival.Ouk egenēthē eislogon monon alla kai en dynamei kai en pneumati hagiō kai plērophoria pollē.Plērophoria is a good word: a fullness that carries — the noun for a ship under full sail, or a mind fully persuaded. The evidence for their being chosen is that something happened, not that something was concluded. One historical note: Thessalonica was a free city and capital of Roman Macedonia, governed by officials called politarchai — a title Acts 17:6 uses and that was long doubted, until inscriptions turned up confirming it.
Still Tuesday of Holy Week, still in the temple, and the third parable has just ended. The opposition changes tactics: instead of arguing, they set a trap with two jaws.
What happens
"The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, 'Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of Theos in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion, for you do not regard a person's status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?' Knowing their malice, Jesus said, 'Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.' Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, 'Whose image is this and whose inscription?' They replied, 'Caesar's.' At that he said to them, 'Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to Theos what belongs to Theos.'"
What to notice
The delegation is the first clue and it is not a natural one. Pharisees and Herodians did not work together. The Pharisees resented Roman taxation as a mark of subjection; the Herodians were the client-party of a dynasty holding its throne by Roman favour.The two groups wanted opposite answers, which is precisely why they came together — whichever way he answered, one of them had him. The tax named is specific: kēnsos is a Latin word carried straight into Greek, the poll tax levied on every adult in a subject province. It was imposed on Judea in AD 6 and triggered an armed revolt under Judas the Galilean (Josephus and Acts 5:37 both mention it). This is not a technical question about fiscal ethics. It is the question people had recently died over. The flattery is laid on with a trowel — you do not look at people's faces — every clause designed to make hedging impossible. And then the move that wins the exchange before a word of content is spoken: epideixate moi to nomisma tou kēnsou, "show me the coin of the tax."He does not have one.And they produce one, immediately.The men asking whether it is lawful to pay the tax are carrying the tax coin in the temple precinct, and everyone watching has just seen it. The coin matters: the standard denarius of Tiberius carried his head with the legend TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS, "Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus" — and on the reverse PONTIF MAXIM, chief priest.The object in their hands claimed divine parentage and a priesthood for a foreign ruler, in a courtyard where images were forbidden. Tinos hē eikōn hautē — "whose image?" — and eikōn is the word in Genesis 1:27 in the Greek Bible: "Theos made the human being according to the image of Theos."The coin carries Caesar's image. The people holding it carry another one. And the verb is not the one usually quoted: he does not say dote, give. He says apodote — give back, a debt word. And then the sentence stops. He never says how much belongs to Caesar.
How They Fit Together
Two claims stamped on two objects — and only one of them is metal
Give back to Caesar what bears his image — and to Theos what bears his
The Church has put a pagan emperor called messiah next to a question about a pagan emperor's tax, and the two readings are answering each other.
Isaiah's move is the most audacious in the prophets. Cyrus is not a good man in this passage, and he is not being converted. He is a Persian king with his own gods and his own propaganda, and Isaiah says twice, in the same breath as the title, that he does not know Yahweh at all. And yet: my anointed, whose right hand I have grasped, I have called you by your name.The grip on the right hand is lifted straight out of the Babylonian coronation liturgy — and Cyrus's own inscription says that is exactly what happened, with Marduk. Isaiah is not ignoring the imperial account. He is contradicting it, item by item, and using its vocabulary to do so.
Which establishes the principle the Gospel will need. A ruler can be genuinely useful to Theos's purposes and be entirely wrong about who he is. Cyrus's ignorance does not diminish his usefulness, and his usefulness does not sanctify his claims. He is an instrument, and the passage is careful never to call him more.
The psalm makes the same distinction with money. Nations are told to bring a minchah — the word for tribute to an overlord — into Yahweh's courts, and to announce in the empire's hearing that Yahweh has become king, which is the formula heralds used for an accession. The gods of those nations are dismissed as elilim, nothings, with a pun that turns their own word for divinity into a word for worthlessness. So the psalm is not neutral about the competing claim. It is comic about it.
Then the Gospel, where the whole thing comes down to a coin somebody was carrying. The trap is well built — Pharisees who hate the tax and Herodians who depend on it, arriving together, so that any answer offends half the delegation and is reportable to somebody. And it is defeated by a request for an object.Show me the coin.He has to ask, because he does not have one; they produce it instantly, because they do. The men publicly agonizing over the lawfulness of the tax are already carrying the emperor's portrait, with its inscription claiming divine sonship, into the temple courtyard.
And the criterion he then supplies is not a doctrine of church and state. It is a question about images.Whose eikōn is this? — and eikōn is the word Genesis 1:27 uses in Greek for what human beings are made according to. The coin is stamped with Caesar; the man holding it is stamped with somebody else.Apodote — give it back; the metal was minted with his face on it and was never yours.
And Jesus does not draw the line. He gives the rule for drawing it and stops. The reason the saying has never settled anything is that it was never meant to settle it in advance: what is Caesar's is identified by his image, and the same test applied to the other half of the sentence yields an answer that no tax collector has ever been able to assess.
Which is where the earliest Christian page in existence turns out to belong. 1 Thessalonians was written to a Roman free city whose officials Luke names correctly, by a man who would eventually be executed by the state whose coin is in this Gospel. And what he says about the Thessalonians is that their election was visible in work, exhausting labour, and hypomonē — remaining under a weight.Not in an opinion about Caesar. Whatever it was that Theos was owed, they were paying it in a currency the empire could not confiscate.
The feast displaced this morning is Luke's, and it is worth a line: the evangelist who dated the whole thing by imperial administration — in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor — is the one who took most care to place the story inside a world of censuses and governors and coins, and who reported the charge brought at the end: "we found this man… saying that he himself is Christ, a king."
A Question to Sit With
They asked a question about money and were asked to produce a coin, and the coin turned out to be the answer — not because of what it bought but because of whose face was on it. I do not think I am often confused about what I owe the state. I am less clear about what carries the other image, and therefore about what is not available to be spent, traded, or handed over to whoever asks convincingly. If I emptied my pockets this morning, what would I find that has somebody else's stamp on it — and what has Theos's?